Wayland City Council members opted to save a lot of money for the city -- and even more for the State of Michigan -- by turning down a project they said they don't really need and opting instead for a smaller one.

On Dec. 2, city staff submitted the paperwork for a $421,700 Stormwater, Asset Management, and Wastewater (SAW) grant from the state.

The program is a result of recent legislation, and helps to provide asset management plan development, stormwater plan development, sewage collection and treatment plan development, and state-funded loans to construct related projects.

City council members had voted to authorize the grant request at their Nov. 18 regular meeting.

According to City Manager Mike Selden, there were two grant proposals to choose from. The first would include cleaning and televising the current sanitary and storm sewers, at a cost of $773,000.

Also included would be asset management plans with equipment, GPS locators, engineering, mapping of the city's systems, software, and other items. This would bring the total up to more than $1.1 million, with the city paying a 10 percent match up to $1 million and 25 percent after that.

The second option, he said, would include only the second part of the project, without the sewer cleaning and televising. The cost would be $421,700, with the city paying $42,170.

Selden said the larger of the two grants might have seemed at first like a better option.

"It looks like a good deal to get all that work done for pennies on the dollar," he said. But the cleaning and televising were not really necessary, as the existing 40-year-old plastic pipes and other components were in good repair, according to Selden.

Council member Jeff Hudson agreed. Instead of spending more than $80,000 extra in matching funds for unnecessary work, he said, "I'd rather have the money to spend on a problem that occurs."

The council voted unanimously to approve the smaller grant request.

According to Selden, the recipients would probably be chosen at random among qualified applicants, and would be notified early in 2014.

The current distribution is $97 million, he said, but the total in SAW grant funds are expected to be about $450 million over several years, so the city could reapply in the future if it doesn't succeed this time.